Is your grocery cart Ecuadorean? Should it be?

A picture is indeed worth a thousand calories. Oops, I mean words. Get a load of this amazing photo-series from Time – What the World Eats. It’s one thing to know our diet has changed dramatically. It’s another to actually SEE it. When you look at these, ask yourself – where are the natural colors? How many green-leafy or colorful foods are there? How much of it is processed?

The most amazing comparisons are between us (by “us” I mean America, Germany and Britain – we have nearly identical-looking diets, except for the creepily-precise arranging of food by the Germans) and the families from Chad and Ecuador. Those Ecuadoreans are eating the way our grandparents ate. Basically the way we’re MEANT to get. Just take a sec and do a quick compare-and-contrast flip back and forth. You can eyeball these foods keeping in mind the latest theory about hibernation signals and what you eat (see the last Doc Gurley article for more on this topic).

And, while you’re there, look closely at the family from Chad. While the amount of food seems heart-breakingly small, the other biggest difference is that their diet is almost ALL whole grains. Recent research shows that whole grains are vital to all of us – but seem to have particularly large benefits for people of African descent, especially when it comes to preventing diseases like diabetes.

Finally, get a whopping eye-full of the amount of fish a Japanese family eats. That’s incredible by the average American-diet standards, and gives a whole new meaning to the doctor’s adage to “eat more fish.”

So how does all of this eye-shock help us live better? Next time you load up at the grocery store, imagine that the photo-crew from Time is waiting by the cash register. How green and leafy is your grocery cart? How many natural colors are there? Is your grocery cart looking whole-grain-African? Or native Ecuadorean? If not, consider replacing some items with others before you check out – so you can live well.

What do you think? Has our food changed as much as it looks like it has? Is it even possible to live an Ecuadorean diet in America? Share in the comments section and keep up on the latest health issues in the news, and healthcare reform insanity/hilarity by signing up for a Doc Gurley RSS feed with the tiny orange button at the top.

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